Monday, December 04, 2006

Just as we did after the killing of Anna Politkovskaya, it's time now following the brutal murder of Alexander Litvinenko to ask: Who's next? We who sit idly by in the aftermath of these outrageous actions become complicit in them. We must ask not only who may be next, but what we can do to protect them, and hence ourselves, from the next act of crude, cowardly violence.

Here's the Wikipedia entry on Mr. Mikhail Trepashkin. Could he be next on the Kremlin's hit list? Reader Jeremy Putley thinks it's possible. Litvinenko wrote a book about the Moscow apartment bombings, now he's pushing up daisies. Anna Politkovskaya was also on the case, and she's singing with angels. Who else was working the story? Mr. Trepashkin was. La Russophobe has previously reported on Trepashkin and his wife andhas already reported how Trepashkin tried to warn Litvinenko that he had been targeted, too late.

Mikhail Trepashkin, (Russian: Михаил Трепашкин) a Moscowattorney and former FSB officer, was invited by MP Sergei Kovalev to assist in an independent inquiry of the Russian apartment bombings in September 1999 – the atrocities that provoked the Second Chechen War and skyrocketed Vladimir Putin to presidency. The inquiry led to nowhere because of the government stonewalling [1]. Then two sisters whose mother was killed in one of the houses hired Trepashkin to represent them in the trial of two Russian Muslims accused of transporting explosives for the bombings [2]. While preparing for the trial Trepashkin uncovered a trail of a mysterious suspect whose description had disappeared from the files. To his amazement, the man turned out to be one of his former FSB colleagues. He also found a witness who testified that evidence was doctored to lead the investigation away from incriminating the FSB [3]. But Trepashkin never managed to air his findings in court. On October 22, 2003, just a week before the hearings, a gun was allegedly planted into his car, and he ended up behind bars. However, before his arrest he told his story to a Moscow journalist [4]. The gun charge was thrown out by a Moscow appeals court[5], but Trepashkin was convicted by a closed military court to four years for "disclosing official secrets" [6]. In September 2005 after serving two years of his sentence, Trepashkin was released on parole, but two weeks later was re-arrested after the State appealed the parole decision [7]. The case of Mikhail Trepashkin caught the attention of the Western press [8], caused an uproar among human rights campaigners [9], was put on record by Amnesty International, mentioned by the US State Department [10] and even featured in an award-winning documentary Disbelief[11]. Mikhail Trepashkin recently managed to send a few letters from his prison [12]. He asks why did the democratic forces of Russia betrayed him while Aleksander Litvinenko, he and others bravely came forward to tell the truth about FSB.

Putley writes: "He is in immediate danger of being murdered in prison, and he is the only remaining from those Russian journalists and dissidents who were working on the 1999 explosions. Fortunately his fellow dissidents in Russia have realized the implications and created a special committee for him. I think that we ought to do some more for him here in the West, too. Especially in the UK, now that there will be a focus on the Russian business for some time."

Here's U.S. Congressman Christopher Smith on Trepashkin (from the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives):

Mr. Speaker, there is reason to fear for the fate of rule of law in Russia. I want to present one relevant example. Mikhail Trepashkin, an attorney and former Federal Security Service, FSB, officer was arrested on October 24, 2003, a week before he was scheduled to represent in legal proceedings the relatives of one of the victims of a terrorist attack in Moscow. Mr. Trepashkin's American client is Tatyana Morozova of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In September 1999, Ms. Morozova's mother was killed and her sister barely survived the bombing of an apartment house in Moscow. Officially, the crime was blamed on Chechen separatists, but Mr. Trepashkin was expected to present the findings of his investigation which suggested involvement of elements of the FSB in the 1999 apartment bombings in Moscow as well as an aborted attempted bombing in the city of Ryazan. Mr. Trepashkin had been a consultant to the public commission set up by prominent human rights activist and former Duma Deputy Sergei Kovalev to investigate the 1999 bombings. The Kovalev commission asked many unpleasant questions but got precious few answers from the authorities. Meanwhile, in the course of his investigation Trepashkin discovered evidence that didn't track with the official version of the bombing incidents. This included events in Ryazan, where a bomb in an apartment basement was discovered by local police and safely detonated hours before it was due to explode. The two suspects in that case were released after presenting FSB identification documents. The whole incident was later declared a "readiness exercise" by Russian authorities. Several months later, the co-chairman of the Kovalev Commission, Duma Deputy Sergei Yushenkov, was assassinated in front of his home. Four persons were convicted of the murder. Another member of the Commission died of food poisoning in a hospital, another was severely beaten by thugs, and two members lost their seats in the Duma. The activities of the decimated commission came to an abrupt halt. A week before the October 24, 2003 trial opened, the police just happened to pull Trepashkin over on the highway, and just happened to find a revolver in his car. Trepashkin claims the gun was planted. Three weeks later, he was put on trial and sentenced to 4 years labor camp by a closed court for allegedly divulging state secrets to a foreign journalist. Mr. Speaker, I don't know all the details of this case, but it looks very much like Mr. Trepashkin was prosecuted in order to prevent him from releasing potentially damaging information regarding the activities of the FSB. The U.S. State Department has commented diplomatically: "The arrest and trial of Mikhail Trepashkin raised concerns about the undue influence of the FSB and arbitrary use of the judicial system." Today Mr. Trepashkin is held in a Volokolamsk city jail in a 130-square foot, lice-infested cell, which he shares with six other prisoners. He suffers from asthma but reportedly has been denied health care or even medicine. These arduous conditions may be retaliation for Mr. Trepashkin's filing a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. It is difficult to believe that President Putin, given his KGB and FSB background, is unaware of the controversy surrounding the bombing investigations and the possibility that elements of the security services were involved. He must realize that corruption and personal vendettas within the FSB are dangerous commodities not only for the people of Russia, but for an entire civilized world that relies on the combined efforts of the intelligence community in the war against terrorism. I urge President Putin to order a thorough and honest investigation of Mikhail Trepashkin's jailing and full cooperation with the Kovalev Commission. While the jury is still out on the 1999 bombings, persecution of those who want to find out the truth does not add to Mr. Putin's credibility among those in the West who so far have been willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

UGLY: Comments from morons who think that it makes some kind of difference what name is slapped on a concentration camp. May you rot on one, sooner rather than later, and come to know the truth yourself.

Your pathetic neo-Soviet propaganda is not only lame and dated, its treason to Russia and far more harmful than the statements of any foreign enemy.

La Rat, don't you know that honor of invention of concentration camps belongs to UK and at time you speaking of there weren't anything resembling CC in Russia? In other words, you know preciously little if anything when you are speaking about Russia.

And I am no propagandist. I am not screaming 'Wake up West', I am not predicting gibberish and I am not 'welcoming to fight' anyone I am speaking with.

UGLY SCUM OF THE EARTH: Oh really? Please post a link to the text where Dostoevsky discusses his internment in a Russian concentration camp.

If he hated the West, that only makes Russians even bigger morons for putting him in a camp. Thanks for reminding me of that. But he wasn't put in the camp for criticizing the West, you DOOFUS, he was put there for criticizing RUSSIA.

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PUTIN MUST FREE THE NEMTSOV WHITE PAPER!

That craven coward Vladimir Putin is censoring the brilliant, courageous and patriotic research of former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov reviewing Putin's record in office. We demand this outrage cease immediately. Read the paper in English PDF here. The HTML version (can be cut and pasted) is here.

Tell All the Truth

Tell all the truth but tell it slant,Success in circuit lies:Too bright for our infirm delightThe truth's superb surprise.

As lightning to the children easedWith explanation kind,The truth must dazzle graduallyOr every man be blind.

-- Emily Dickinson

Alone

From childhood's hour I have not beenAs others were, I have not seenAs others saw, I could not bringMy passions from the common spring.From the same source I have not takenMy sorrow, I could not awakenMy heart to joy at the same tone,And all I loved, I loved alone.Then in my childhood, in the dawnOf a most stormy life was drawnFrom every depth of good and illThe mystery which binds me still:From the torrent, and the fountain,From the red cliff of the mountain,From the sun that 'round me rolledIn its autumn tint of gold;From the lightning in the sky,As it passed me, flying by,From the thunder, and the storm,And the cloud that took the form(When the rest of Heaven was blue)Of a demon in my view.

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Girl Power: Ginger Rogers could do everything Fred Astaire could do . . . backwards, and in high heels.

Pioneer Power: Though he painted more than 1,000 works of art in his lifetime, Vincent Van Gogh sold only two.

Mark Twain: "It's a man with very little imagination who can only spell a word one way."

Socrates: "To be is to do." Sartre: "To do is to be." Sinatra: "Do be do be do."

Girl Power: On May 14, 2006, a perfect game was pitched in the Oakfield, New York Little League. Perfect as in 18 consecutive strikeouts. The pitcher's name? Katie Brownell. She's the only female player in the league.

Girl Power: On April 13, 2007, the Independent reported that women will soon be able to produce sperm cells from their bone marrow, making men obsolete.